Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It does to some extent. We have to look at this from the point of view of where the pitfalls are. I see a pitfall for a farmer who wants to try to streamline his or her costs, particularly the small farmer who is operating on very tight margins. That farmer wants to minimise the number of times he or she has to request a prescription and, ultimately, incur a cost. I take Dr. Corkery's point that he has discussed the matter with farmers and that there is an option for them to change that. I do not believe that is satisfactory. There should be a safeguard whereby a farmer should have protection in order that he or she can seek an annualised prescription or a monthly or quarterly prescription, if he or she so wishes. I would appreciate it if Dr. Corkery could come back to me on that point and see if he can explore building in that safeguard in his ongoing discussions with the vets.

In the unlikely event of, say, somebody taking a legal challenge against this and where that person would automatically seek full disclosure, he or she would be entitled to the Attorney General's opinion. Given the scale of the change involved with this new system, on behalf of the committee, I ask Dr. Corkery to go back to the Attorney General and ask him to give permission to provide the relevant advice to the people who have sought it. That is not an unreasonable request. That is my fourth follow-up for Dr. Corkery. Could he do that for us and revert to the committee with the Attorney General's position?